Tory MP to quit over anti-European policy

A senior pro-European Tory MP has decided to quit the Commons in protest at his party's "lurch to the right" under Iain Duncan Smith.

Robert Jackson, MP for Wantage and a former education minister, has told his constituency association he will step down at the next election after nearly 20 years as an MP.

Mr Jackson, 55, who supported Kenneth Clarke for the Tory leadership this summer, defied a three-line whip last month by voting with the Government to ratify the Nice Treaty. He had declared at the beginning of the year that he intended to stay in politics for another 10 years, but is understood to have changed his mind after Mr Duncan Smith's victory. He is said to have been particularly upset by the Tory leader's decision to rule out membership of the euro "for ever". The MP, whose wife is a Tory MEP, was also said to be disturbed by the appointment to the Shadow Cabinet of the hardline Eurosceptic Bill Cash.

Publicly, Mr Jackson cited business interests for his decision and the need to give a replacement Tory candidate "plenty of time to get to know the constituency", but his choice to announce his retirement so early in a parliament is highly unusual. He was returned with a majority of more than 5,000 at the June election.